Homeworkers
[page 28]The fact that someone works at home has no legal effect on their employment status, which will be decided by applying the same principles described at the start of this chapter to the facts of each case.
The coronavirus pandemic caused a fundamental shift towards homeworking for those working in occupations that allowed them to work from home, and where they had the resources. For many of those, working from home has now become a permanent arrangement.
The LRD booklet Negotiating the new homeworking landscape – a guide for union reps (April 2021) looks at the advantages and disadvantages of working from home and provides unions reps with information ranging from how to draw up collective homeworking policies and agreements with employers to advising individual members on whether making a homeworking request is a good idea for them.
Much of the recent focus on homeworking is concentrated on office-based roles, but there are large numbers of workers in the UK who carry out tasks such as assembly work, packing and garment making from home and who are often at risk of exploitation through low pay, long hours and lack of health and safety measures. The ILO Convention on Homework (177) explains how international labour standards should be applied to homeworkers.